Which one fact, always old yet ever new,

Accounts for so much crime that, for my part,

Molinos may go whistle to the wind

That waits outside a certain church, you know!"

Though really it does seem as if she here,

Pompilia, living so and dying thus,

Has had undue experience how much crime

A heart can hatch. Why was she made to learn

—Not you, not I, not even Molinos' self—

What Guido Franceschini's heart could hold?